Sr/ Staff Human Robot Interaction Design Engineer

Intuitive; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Intuitive seeks a Human Factors Design Engineer to advance usability and safety of robotic systems, instruments, and accessories, focusing on Human Robot Interaction research, neurorobotics and neural interfaces.

You will translate findings into design requirements, lead end-to-end experiments, and prototype concepts that steer product decisions. Based in Sunnyvale, CA, this full-time role reports to the HF Manager and influences cross-functional teams to improve future human-robot interfaces.

Qualifications

• Experience in robotics, HRI, and mixed-methods research.
• Ability to design and conduct experiments end-to-end and analyze multimodal data.
• Prototype concepts and translate research into actionable design requirements.

Responsibilities

• Apply deep expertise in robotics, HRI, and mixed-methods research to identify unmet user needs and opportunities for product innovation.
• Independently generate and communicate actionable design insights that shape product strategy and usability capabilities.
• Lead usability design inputs across robotic systems, translating research into user/interface requirements.
• Conduct literature reviews to justify research strategy and study design.
• Translate scientific evidence to stakeholders to inform product design strategies.

Skills

Robotics

Human-Robot Interaction

Usability engineering

Data analysis

Experiment design

Prototyping

Tools

Python

C++

Job description

Job Description

Primary Function of Position

The Human Factors Design Engineer (HFDE) is part of the Human Factors (HF) organization that aims to maximize usability and desirability of Intuitive products while minimizing risk through scientific research and usability engineering. Broadly, HFDE is focused on research and design within product development of new robotic systems, instruments and accessories. This role is more exclusively focused on Human Robotic Interaction Research, Neurorobotics, and Neural Interfaces.

HFDE helps de-risk design strategies within product development through a range of formative research activities and hands-on design engineering activities that inform the definition of user requirements and user interface design requirements underlying the user experience of Intuitive products.

HFDE conducts research that is focused on the psychology, biomechanics, and physiology of end users’ underlying performance associated with robotic teleoperations. This position will generate evidence to provide strategic insight into "what", "why", and "how much" end users differ in learning and performance across a range of products. This role functions in ambiguous and strategic stages of product development that involve the ability to position and conduct experimental research within a business.

This role demands extensive follow-through to translate, communicate, ideate, prototype, and build novel evidence-based strategies, tools, and concepts that operationalize and inform the "intuitiveness" of commercialized and future products. This role demands quick changes in direction with capacity to define and implement strategies that have visibility across business units while maintaining focus on tactical details. This role is a unique engineering and scientific opportunity with the expectation that knowledge and skills can be applied to experimental behavioral and neuroscientific research that actionably informs product design strategies for future development, inform product development, and establish product claims with state-of-the-art human-robot interfaces.

The HFDE position reports to a Manager within the broader HF organization at Intuitive.

Essential Job Duties

• Apply deep expertise in robotics, HRI, and mixed-methods research to identify unmet user needs, performance limitations, and opportunities for future product innovation.
• Independently generate, prioritize, and communicate actionable design insights that shape product strategy, influence development priorities, and advance human factors capabilities.
• De-risk design strategies focused on the analysis of human performance, workflow, and usability factors, while identifying and mitigating systemic usability risks across product lines.
• Serve as the human factors lead for complex initiatives, partnering with engineering, product management, quality, and regulatory teams to drive usability-centered design decisions.
• Influence product and business decisions by balancing user needs, safety, usability, technical feasibility, and organizational priorities.
• Lead the definition and management of usability design inputs across robotic systems, instruments, and accessories, translating research findings into actionable user and interface requirements.
• Conduct literature reviews that justify research strategy and study design
• Conduct experiments end-to-end ranging in scale and complexity, including data processing and analysis from multimodal data capture
• Translate scientific evidence to a range of internal and external stakeholders into actional recommendations for product design strategies, product requirements, or product claims
• Develop and evaluate conceptual prototypes that communicate design strategies, performance considerations, and future product concepts.
• Data extraction, transformation, processes, analysis and visualization with multiple data sources from biometrics, psychometrics, and system data logs from lab-based experiments and field-based experiments
• Prototype and iterate on designs, develop tests, and deliver high-quality software in Python or C++ required for ML performance modeling
• Manage updates on systems configurations for reliable data capture pipeline from lab-based and field-based experiments
• Build and validate experimental conditions within virtual and physical environments
• Develop and validate novel and OTS bioinstrumentation and psychometrics that can be implemented in experiments to reliably measure individual differences related to human performance
• Author and maintain early stage human factors engineering deliverables, ensuring compliance with design controls, usability engineering processes, and regulatory requirements. Mentor peers and project teams in applying HF methodologies, frameworks, and best practices while fostering innovation through the integration of user insights and cross-functional expertise.